December summary

This month more germination occurred: 1 on rockwool plug, 4 on filter paper and 1 on sphagnum moss, making totals:

Rockwool 6
Filter paper 6
Spagnum 1
Soil 0

Rockwool and paper seem to perform evenly, but seedlings on plug came earlier and are more vigorous.

In the beginning of the month first seedlings just began to develop second pairs of leaves and in the end some grew big enough to touch nursery lid. 

I upgraded 24H lighting.
In the end one plant suffered from underwatering but is apparently recovering.
Here is the latest full nursery photo:

See also November summary

Double lighting

The dried plant is amazingly recovering (first frame is before drying, and it's visible how even dried leaves are stiffing up)

I decided to add more lighting meanwhile. I ordered a grow lamp from China. Specs say it's "15Red+7Blue+4White+1IR+1UV" LEDs, but it's not clear if it's 8W or 28W power. I'm too lazy to measure, but to naked eye it doesn't look much brighter than my previous 5W red and blue lamp.

Also I've painted light shield white, both to increase reflection and to somewhat improve aesthetics. Here's how full installation looks like from inside now:

And from outside:

Recovery

Since yesterday all plants are looking good except for one. That poor guy's top leaves are definitely dead, but bottom look much better than they were yesterday.

Actually a backup branch began to grow:

Some describe bonsai as a story of trees suffering. For this one story began earlier than I planned, but probably it's not too bad.

Shall I cut dried leaves or it is better to keep them for a while?

Another issue was top of other seedling touching nursery lid. I believe this is not optimal, because it was constantly wet. So I needed a larger greenhouse. After considering market, I decided that available mini greenhouses are somewhat overpriced, so I decided to extend existing one by myself. Here is what i got in the end:

The idea was also to make a sort of a gutter to collect condensate from the roof and make soil humidity more even in different cells. Will see how it works out.

First casualities

Yesterday I returned from a 3 night vacation, and seedlings looked well, actually they've grew a lot without my attention. The largest one now touches the lid:

I didn't water them because they looked moist, with green algae or something on all rocks. But next day three plants were laying almost flat, I didn't notice their soil was actually dry yesterday. That's because condensate from lid goes down to edge cells keeping them wet, but central cells are drying much faster.

Not a perfect shot, drying plants are on background, 3 of them. I decided to water them instead of making good pictures. After a few hours all but one plant show signs of recovery:

Central right still looking bad, but not completely dead, so it's a good chance to try rooting hormone in action. I've applied it at two middle plants. Will see if it helps.

Fertilizing and first branch

It's been 3 weeks since first sprout, so it's time to fertilize. Most manuals say don't fertilize in winter time, but I've got heated and alight nursery, so I believe my plants need to be fertilized.
I've got some liquid bonsai fertilizer which contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and some metals (4-6-6 NPK). So I diluted it as instructed (5ml per liter of water, I had to use precision scales to measure it) and watered plants generously. Hopefully it's for good.
So far seedlings grew well, some of them developed many leaves. That's the latest overview of the nursery:

Couple plants which have germinated 10 days ago, they've barely grown at all. Apparently, they're not vigorous enough, that's why it took them so long to germinate in the first place. Compare them to their sibling which is just 10 days older:

There were no new sprouts since then, so I've scrapped leftover seeds.
And here is the largest plant so far:

It already have developed a small branch (just above first pair of leaves) and generally grows like a tree, in asymmetric fashion.

Benefits of watering

Here is animation of day-by-day progress made by two seedlings I accidentally put into one cell (just didn't notice first seed when transferred the second one)

See how growth speed increased last 2 days? That's after I really watered them. Apparently, I kept soil too dry by watering it just by condensate from lid couple times a day. This time I watered it generously and going to wait until it dries again.
Also since I installed 24H lighting, plants stopped to grow vertically and instead began to develop leaves very quickly. Some of them already have third pair of leaves, relatively large ones:

The only issue I see is some rocks turning somewhat green:

Hopefully it's something like healthy moss and is not harmful. Obviously, humidity is around 100% in the propagator so something had to grow there apart from seedlings. Can it be sphagnum?
Last couple days two more seeds germinated on filter paper. Since nothing has shown up on sphagnum since week ago nor anything ever germinated on soil, I scrapped these experimental cells and they're going to be used for transferred seedlings.

Second pairs of leaves

A few plants developed second pairs of leaves. Look pretty healthy:

Also there was another germination on rockwool plug.

Triple germination, including sphagnum

There've been a while since last rockwool germination, but today I got two new seedlings on filter paper and the first one on sphagnum moss!
Look at this tiny fella from paper:

Another paper guy was fast enough to show leaves:

And this new Ficus popped out from sphagnum suddenly. Yesterday I didn't see it in moss and here it is today:

To transfer these tiny seedlings (ones on paper are hardly 1mm across) to soil without harming them, I made a gentle tool, some sort of tweezers:

So this is a tree on paper tweezer

November summary

In the middle of November I've started to grow Bodhi Trees from seeds.
I've put half of a bag of seeds into a glass water for 3 days. (more)
After soaking, I've sprinkled seeds on to 4 media: bonsai soil, sphagnum moss, filter paper and rockwool hydroponics plug. (details)
In 7 days, there was first sprout on rockwool. I transferred seedlings to a small greenhouse nursery on a heated mat (one, two)
Over the course of 8 days, there were 7 seedlings, 5 of them sprouted on rockwool and 2 on filter paper.
In the end of the month I've installed a grow light and I keep it on 24 hours a day.
All seedlings look healthy and grow vigorously!

Grow light

Another germination on rockwool plug, making total of 7 seedlings.

Days are getting shorter so I installed a 5 W red and blue LED grow lamp. Description says "Red (660nm 1pcs) red (620-630nm 2pcs), blue(460nm 2pcs)". Are different wavelengths of red that important?
That's current installation overlook (pretty lilac):

I wonder, will they better off if I keep the light in 24h/day?

Filter paper friuts

Today finally filter paper proved itself: two seeds have germinated on it:

 


This makes rockwool: 4, filter paper: 2, sphagnum and soil: 0
At least, I can't see any sprouts from seeds I initially put on soil.
Yesterday's guys are looking healthy and I even cal see microscopic roots branching from main stem (given that's not mold):

Photos are blurred, but keep in mind visible stem in seedling above is hardly more than 1mm tall.
It's cloudy today so I decided to temporarily install a 3W white led lamp to improve lighting. More advanced lamps are on their way.
This is how the installation is looking like now:

Two more sprouts

Another two seeds sprouted on rockwool plug. This thing outperforms other media by far! What's the secret? Is it optimal water transfer or some fertilizer in the plug? It makes water yellow.
Previous seedlings have grown as well. First one is 9mm tall now, look as this mighty tree:

Pretty good progress for 3 days, isn't it? If it keeps the pace, in a month it's going to overgrow the nursery.
Second one is also looking good:

This is overall view of nursery in it's current state:

First transfer and second germination

In the morning I've transferred yesterday's seedling to soil. It have already developed a long and branched root (well, relative to seed size, root was a little more than 1mm). So it took some effort to pull it from the rockwool plug using paper strips.

I put propagator with soil by the south facing window on a stack of boxes and turned on a 7W heating mat. Lid is now covered with condensate from inside and thermometer on top of the lid shows 23°C.

In the evening another seed have sprouted! Moved it immediately to soil.

Meanwhile, first sprout have grown during the day. Relative progress is impressive!

First sprout

One seedling on rockwool have sprouted! Will not touch it today, got to prepare soil and a bright place to grow.

It took 10 days from soaking seeds to first germination. All the rest seeds didn't change yet.
Temperature on the shelf these days was between 23° and 26°C.

Putting seeds for propagation

Seeds are wet enough, it's time to put them for propagation.
I should've used really small cup for soaking instead of glass, tiny seeds are very challenging to work with. Some of them have not sinked, but I'm going to try them anyway to check if it is really a bad sign.
I'm about to start an experiment to check which medium is the best. Groups are:

• Bonsai soil
  
• Sphagnum moss on bonsai soil 
  
• Rockwool plug
• Filter paper 
  
• Additional group is floater seeds on bonsai soil.

I'm using plastic propagators with transparent lids:

I soaked sphagnum well in a small cup:

Put soil in propagator and also watered it:

It's really difficult to move wet seeds from glass to medium. I used small strips of paper to operate, and word "scatter" doesn't really reflect all fine details of the process.

Finally, seeds are on rockwool plug and filter paper in propagator box

And on soil (barely visible)

Lids are in place and propagators are put on top shelve in kitchen

Soaking seeds

I'm taking hints from this post. There are several ways of growing listed, and I'm going to conduct experiments to figure out which are better. But first step is unambiguous: soak seeds in water for couple days. That's what I did today: got a glass of cold tap water, heated it up a little bit in microwave and poured half of my Ficus Religiosa seeds there.
Fukubonsai says discard all floating seeds, but all my seeds floated, none have sinked by themselves. So I forced them down with my finger, but half left floating anyway.

Ficus Religiosa

I'm going to grow Ficus Religiosa (Bodhi Tree) bonsai from seeds. Adult tree might look like this:

or this:

But seeds are really tiny, like a very fine sand:

It might take a while to grow, but should be fun.
I purchased seeds on Amazon, and ordered propagator and a few things like soil on Aliexpress. They are cheaper in China and choice is much wider. Actually, absolutely similarly looking things are sold on Amazon sometimes for double price compared to Chinese.